Lavery first visited Tangier in 1891 almost certainly upon the recommendation of his fellow Glasgow Boys, Arthur Melville and Joseph Crawhall who had found great inspiration in the souks and bazaars of the exotic white-washed city. Almost as soon as he had unpacked his bags, Lavery began to busy himself painting small views of the sights he could see from the terrace on the rooftop of the Hotel Continental which looked one way into the bustling enigmatic city and the other way across the bay towards Andalucia and the Rock of Gibraltar. It has been said that Lavery's eye was enlivened by the regular supply of inspiring sights and colours in Tangier. The pictures he painted there certainly have a wonderful spontaneity and glimmer with refracted light. From 1891 onwards until the outbreak of World War I, Lavery returned to Tangier and by the beginning of the twentieth century, had acquired a house there, named Dar El Midfah or ‘House of the Cannon’ after a half buried cannon in the garden.

Nineteenth century artists and tourists had been drawn to Tangier to experience the exotic Arab way of life and initially Lavery had sought to paint the rather stereotyped view of the ancient city as painted by the likes of Ingres, Gerome and Constant. He soon found that the reality was far more interesting and by painting the people and sights as he found them, his appreciation of the city was magnified. He found that from the many rooftops the city laid itself open for him and that unobserved he could paint local people going about their daily lives in the streets and houses below and gain a very real and intimate understanding of his subject. Lavery was interested in the effects of light and shadow and in Tangier, the play of the African sun on the white painted walls of the houses and on the expanse of sand which made up the beach gave him ample opportunity to indulge this interest.

Of all the subjects to be painted at Tangier, it was the wide sweep of the beach that was amongst his most favourite compositions. Taken from the cliffs above, the present view looks west along the curve of the bay up to the White City of Tangier on the horizon, silhouetted against the clear sky. The composition combines both a Whistlerian focus on the horizontal relationship between sky, sea and shore, with the intense bright light of the North African coast. As is evident in the fluid impasto of the waves in contrast to the foreshortened beach, Lavery had clearly enjoyed painting what was one of his much-loved aesthetic arrangements.

John Atkinson Grimshaw was arguably the most evocative painter of moonlit and evening scenes, who in the 1870s and 1880s, painted a series of pictures of the gloaming seen from the vantage of an elegant suburban road. Often a solitary female figure wanders homeward through the street, freed from the chores of daytime drudgery. Calmness and silence pervades these moody images in which the real subject is not the question of the woman's identity or destination, but the effects of the light upon her surroundings.

Golden Eve dates from the mid 1880s and demonstrates the sophistication of style to which the artist had attained. The notion of conclusion and decay is paramount in this image, the end of the day when the sun sets, the end of the year as the trees are stripped of leaves and the end of the woman's daily routine. However, as with most of Grimshaw's pictures of evening scenes, the mood is not pesimistic or melancholic. By flooding the scene with the diffused golden light, Grimshaw celebrates the beauty of the close of day.

Violet Agar-Robartes (1888-1965) was the youngest sister of the 7th Viscount Clifden and was from the 9th and last generation of the Robartes family to live at Lanhydrock. The house, which is near Bodmin in Cornwall, was given to the National Trust in 1953.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

[This 1851 illustration shows the HMS Investigator on the north coast of Baring Island in the Arctic. Arctic archaeologists have found the ship that forged the final link in the Northwest Passage and was lost in the search for the Franklin expedition. The HMS Investigator, abandoned in the ice in 1853, is in shallow water in Mercy Bay along the northern coast of Banks Island in Canada's Western Arctic]

Alfred Augustus Glendening Jnr. was born into an artistic family in 1861. Glendening was a member of the Royal Society of British Artists and from 1880 was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy. His work now hangs in the Tate Gallery, London and in Aberdeen, Scotland. Glendening was an important Victorian artist who was able to capture light with great sensitivity. This painting is a perfect example of the highly detailed and romantic art that was popular in the Nineteenth Century.

signed and dated l.r.: Atkinson Grimshaw S.93; further signed, dated and inscribed on the reverse: Roundhay Lake/ AtkinsonGrimshaw S.93oil on canvas46 by 69cm., 18 by 27in.

Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 121,250 GBP

John Atkinson Grimshaw painted several views of Roundhay Park from 1872 onwards until his death. His first three paintings of the park were commissioned by a committee of the House of Lords in connection with the Leeds Corporation Improvement Bill. The Corporation of Leeds intended to purchase Roundhay Estate following the death of Nicholson in 1871. Nicholson had no heir and the Corporation wished to buy the estate and make it a public park.

The purchase was successful and the park was opened to the public on 19 September 1872 by Prince Arthur.

However, the Mayor of Leeds John Barron was severely criticised for investing in what was generally regarded to be a 'white elephant' as the park was far out of Leeds and not easily accessible. It was the remote mystery of Roundhay that attracted Grimshaw who found in the wilderness of the park and the haunting beauty of its ruins and the silent solitude of the lake, the same enigmatic beauty he had painted in the lonely suburban streets and faded glories of manor gardens of Leeds, where ivy and dry leaves veil the golden landscape. In the present picture Grimshaw captured the evening glory of the shadows and sunset reflected in the waters of the thirty-three acre lake which had been built in just two years by soldiers that had returned from the Napoleonic wars and thus named Waterloo Lake. A lone and graceful swan creates scale within the otherwise unoccupied landscape.

Grimshaw loved the natural beauty of Roundhay but also recognised the ancient serenity of its woods, which in the thirteenth century had been the hunting grounds of the DeLacy family of Pontefract Castle. Roundhay remains a public park and is now well regarded by the Leeds residents and the wildlife that is now protected within its boundaries. Flocks of mute swans still nest on Waterloo Lake as they did in Grimshaw's day and the scene has changed very little since Grimshaw painted it and since DeLacy rode through the trees hunting wild boar.

signed l.r.: Atkinson Grimshaw +; inscribed and signed on the reverse: A Golden Gleam/ Atkinson Grimshaw/ +oil on canvas31 by 46cm., 12 by 18in.

Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 109,250 GBP

Throughout the 1880s John Atkinson Grimshaw painted a series of views of suburban streets in autumn, predominantly painted in Yorkshire. In these images of roads and lanes between the high stone walls hiding mansions and villas from prying eyes, the scenes are deserted except for a solitary female figure making her way down a leaf and puddle strewn road. These paintings are perhaps the most evocative and typical of the artist, who was unrivalled in his depiction of the evening gloaming. The busy traffic of horses and carts bringing goods into the city from the outlying farms have left their impressions in the damp soil of the road, but most have long sincedeparted and the gateways have been closed to the outside world. There is an emotive sense of stillness and calm which pervades these golden images of evening light. Grimshaw was arguably the most evocative painter of moonlit and evening scenes in which calmness and silence pervades these moody images. The subject is not aspecific locality, but the effects of light upon a generic suburban street. Unlike the pictures of the great cities of Britain and the fishing villages that Grimshaw painted, there are no landmarks in Golden Gleam to place the exact location and the picture is therefore a more abstract summary of glorious light and autumnal splendour. The sense of mystery evoked by the appearance of the lonely road is further enhanced by the anonymity of the scene with the exact location withheld. The Victorians had a huge appetite for such romantic intrigue and it was a prevalent theme in the novels, plays and poetry of the age. Grimshaw himself was inspired by the writings of Wordsworth, Browning, Shelley and in particular Tennyson. Alexander Robertson sums up thus; 'A few lines from Tennyson's 'Enoch Arden' seem to demonstrate this most succinctly:

'The climbing street, the mill, the leafy lanes,The peacock-yewtree and the lonely Hall,The horse he drove, the boat he sold, the chillNovember dawns and dewy glooming downs,The gentle shower, the smell of dying leaves'

In Golden Gleam the notion of conclusion and decay is paramount, the end of the day when the sun sets, the end of the year as the trees are stripped of leaves and the end of the daily routine of the maid making her solitary way home carrying a basket. By flooding the scene with diffused golden light, Grimshaw celebrates the beauty of the close of day.

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A blog on my love of Victorian and Edwardian paintings. Please note over 70,000 painters of this period, many very obscure, have been identified and this blog concentrates on those that have come up for auction in the last ten years or so. It is mainly compiled using old auction catalogues with help from the many reference books I own.

It includes painters born in the late 19th century who have painted well into the 20th. I make no pretence that my reproductions are technically accurate but are intended to show the style of the artist.

I rarely know who these paintings were sold to or the price they fetched. I recommend Artnet.com (a subscription service) to those for whom this is important. I am not in the Art trade, just an interested amateur who loves the arts of this period.